Recursive identification of individuals for casual collaborative conferencing

ABSTRACT

A method for real-time communication among two or more individuals separated in space. The method includes the steps of determining that a first individual is likely to be interested in communicating with a second individual via a first communications link; retrieving information via the first communications link about one or more additional individuals from electronic memory means associated with the second individual; and establishing communication with at least one of the additional individuals based on the retrieved information.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of prior application U.S. Ser. No.09/371,781 filed on Aug. 10, 1999 now U.S. Pat. No. 6,721,410 which ishereby incorporated by reference.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

A. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates generally to the field oftelecommunications, and more particularly to casual collaborativeconferencing.

B. Description of the Related Art

The World Wide Web (WWW), one type of service provided through theInternet, allows a user to access a universe of information whichcombines text, audio, graphics and animation within a hypermediadocument. Links are contained within a WWW document which allow simpleand rapid access to related documents. The WWW was developed to provideresearchers with a system that would enable them to quickly access alltypes of information with a common interface, removing the necessity toexecute a variety of numerous steps to access the information. During1991, the WWW was released for general usage with access to hypertextand UseNet news articles. Interfaces to WAIS, anonymous FTP, Telnet andGopher were added. By the end of 1993, WWW browsers with easy to useinterfaces had been developed for many different computer systems.

UseNet is a network of news groups on thousands of different topicswhich allow the on-line discussion through the posting of individualmessages (articles) which can be read by participants. An article issimilar to an e-mail message, having a header, message body andsignature.

Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is an example of a program that facilitatesWeb chat. “Chatting” is the term used for the network equivalent of theold telephone party line. RC is accessed through an Internet connection.This technology permits the user to chat with users from all over theworld about hundreds of different subjects at any time. In a way, it isas if the UseNet newsgroups were a live discussion group rather thanpostings.

The word “chat” may be somewhat misleading, because personsparticipating in a chat session are not necessarily speaking, but theyare typing and reading text messages that chat participants write.Moreover, if the information communicated is not only in text form, butis real-time audio and video, chat rooms are better described by theterm virtual space rooms. Once a person enters a chat room, which isreally just a web page, that person can choose to only read theexchanges, known as lurking, or the person can join in and postmessages.

Many chat rooms focus the conversation on specific topics, such ashealth, politics, and football. In that way, people with similarinterests can find one another.

The first step for a person interested in joining a chat session, is tolocate a chat room that interests the person. Once the person is on theweb site (leading to the chat room), the interested person will usuallybe asked to register. For privacy purposes, people do not register usingtheir real name, but instead people make up a name.

Once the person is equipped with a registration name, the person clicksa button and follows the instructions on the web site to choose a chatroom, depending on the interests of the person. Joining a chat room islike walking into a room full of people talking to each other, sometimeswith several conversations going on at once. Once inside the chat room,the person will probably find himself or herself in the middle of aconversation. There is no need to jump into the conversation. It is notuncommon for chat rooms to have many more lurkers than participants. Asthe interaction continues, new postings appear on the computer screen.When the person decides to join the conversation, all it takes is totype a message in a blank box in the screen and click a Talk button (orhit the Enter or Return key on the keyboard). Soon the message will beposted in the chat room and people may respond. In addition to chattingon a chat room where the text is broadcast to everyone on that chatroom, there are ways to enter into a private chat.

A number of Internet phone software products offer voice capabilities inreal time over the Internet. Internet phoneware vendors typicallyprovide their own directory servers, organized by topic as well as byname. Voice quality varies from moment to moment. Such variations aredue to the processing delay that results from encoding and decoding theconversation as well as the inherent delay of the Internet, which variesaccording to the amount of traffic at any given time and the routethrough which the signal must travel.

The Web chat is, however, only one level of an area of technology knownas collaborative conferencing. Collaborative conferencing is the abilityfor two or more individuals to work together in real-time, in acoordinated manner over time and spice by using computers. Collaborativeconferencing is not limited to a live text exchange, but includes dataconferencing/shared whiteboard applications, group interactive documentediting, and audio and video multi-point conferencing among others.

The technique of Internet chat has the disadvantage that it is limitedin the choices that individuals can make respecting whom they want toestablish communication with. Namely, they have to join a chat room thathas a specific discussion topic, and can only pick people in that chatroom with whom to engage in a private chat. To solve this problem, asolution has been proposed and implemented, in which matches betweendifferent individuals connected to the WWW are created. This requiresthe inconvenient step of requesting information to the user, so as tocreate a user profile, and thus, perform matches based on thoseprofiles.

Therefore, there is a need in the art for a system that offers moreflexibility to individuals to choose other individuals with whom theywant to engage in a conversation, the conversation not being limited toa conventional Internet chat (text).

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to meet theforegoing needs by providing systems and methods that efficiently enablereal-time communication among two or more individuals separated inspace.

Specifically, a method for meeting the foregoing needs is disclosed. Themethod includes the steps of determining that a first individual islikely to be interested in communicating with a second individual via afirst communications link; retrieving information via the firstcommunications link about one or more additional individuals fromelectronic memory means associated with the second individual; andestablishing communication with at least one of the additionalindividuals based on the retrieved information.

Both the foregoing general description and the following detaileddescription provide examples and explanations only. They do not restrictthe claimed invention.

DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute apart of this specification, illustrate embodiments of the invention and,together with the description, explain the advantages and principles ofthe invention. In the drawings,

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a collaborative conferencing system;

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a computer system associated with user A inFIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is an example of an user's personal directory according to thepresent invention;

FIG. 4 is a flowchart describing the steps to establish real-timecommunication according to the present invention; and

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a second mode of operation of the computersystem in FIG. 2.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Reference will now be made to preferred embodiments of this invention,examples of which are shown in the accompanying drawings and will beobvious from the description of the invention. In the drawings, the samereference numbers represent the same or similar elements in thedifferent drawings whenever possible.

Systems and methods consistent with the present invention performcollaborative conferencing by using recursive identification ofindividuals. For purposes of the following description, the systems andmethods consistent with the present invention are mainly described withrespect to Internet chat. The description should be understood to applyto other levels or modes of operation in a collaborative conferencingsystem, such as a casual collaborative conversation with persons in avirtual space room.

FIG. 1 shows a general collaborative conferencing (system 100. Thesystem includes communication means associated with users A-F (10, 12and 16-19), a Wide Area Network (WAN) 14, and a chat server 22. The WAN14 is any network that is capable of transferring data at speeds fastenough as to support collaborative conferencing. An example of a WAN isthe Internet. The chat server 22 is a computer connected to the WAN 14that offers a chat service. That is, the chat server 22 runs softwarethat enables the creation of a chat room. The users A-F can enter thechat room if connected to the chat server 22. As mentioned above, a chatroom is nothing more that a web page, which in this case is supported bythe chat server 22. By contrast, supporting a virtual space room mightrequire equipment other than a single server. Support for the virtualspace room can be offered by several servers (not shown) that are partof the WAN 14.

In the system 100, user A determines that user B is a person that islikely to be interesting enough so as to get involved in a casualcollaborative conversation with that person. That is, if user A believesthat he or she shares common interests with user B, user A will engagein collaborative conferencing with user B. This determination is madeafter obtaining information about user B. The information is obtained bycommunicating with user B. The manner in which user A communicates withuser B in order to determine whether he or she is likely to beinterested in communicating with user B (possibly via some othercommunication means or links) includes, but is not limited to,telephonic conversations, e-mail, voice mail, real-time video, andreal-time text.

Once user A determines he or she is likely to be interested incommunicating with user B, user A targets or spots user B when user Benters a chat room or a virtual space room. User A will see on hiscomputer screen (208 in FIG. 2) either the name or an image of user Bwhenever user B is “on-line”. Each user in the system 100 has a personaldirectory 20 containing the names of other people with collaborativeconferencing capability.

Unlike conventional methods of matchmaking in a chat room context, userA does not rely on a computer program to pick interesting persons forhim or her. Instead, user A relies on user B's personal directory 20 asa starting point to find more interesting persons. User A accesses someof the information contained in directory 20 about other users withcollaborative conferencing capability, with whom user B communicates.This technique is called recursive identification of individuals. Theinformation that user A can access is limited according to permissionsassigned to each record in the directory by user B.

FIG. 3 shows an example of different permissions designated by user B.The directory 20 contains individual records 300-304 that correspond toindividuals with collaborative conferencing capability. The list ofusers (300-304) is by no means extensive and is not representative ofall of the possible users that could be included in the directory 20.Records 300-304 contain user information that includes, but is notlimited to, users' e-mail address, users' names and virtual space roomlogin names, picture id's, etc.

There are different levels of permissions that the user B can assign tothe users records (300-304) in the directory 20. Because any other userof the system in the present invention can get access to someinformation, user 12 assigns access permissions to records 300-304.These permissions define how much information can be accessed by theother users via their respective communications means (10 and 16-19 inFIG. 1).

One level of access corresponds to the type of service that is usedwithin the system. In FIG. 3, the record 300, corresponding to user Ccan be accessed by the entire public that communicates with user B viaWeb chat (e.g., a chat server 22). The term “public” refers to all ofthe persons with collaborative conferencing capabilities. On the otherhand, when another level in collaborative conferencing is in use,namely, video conferencing, only users A and D can access recordinformation 300 about user C from user B's directory 20.

Other levels of permissions include, but are not limited to, giving thepublic access to the entire directory 20, giving specific persons accessto the entire directory 20, giving the public access to informationcontained in some of the records 300-304, and giving specific personsaccess to information contained in some of the records 300-304.

The directory 20 can be created by user B manually. That is, user B cangather a list of names of individuals that he or she communicates with,and enters that list into the directory 20. In the present invention, analternative to manually creating the directory is to have the softwarethat enables collaborative conferencing create the directory 20 for theuser. The software has a routine that monitors the communication betweenuser B and other users (e.g., C-F) and that adds to the directory 20information about the users that communicate with user B. As an option,the software can sort the information in the directory 20, according tothe frequency of the communications between user B and the individualsnamed in the directory 20. Moreover, another option consists ofautomatically deleting information from the directory 20, when thesoftware determines that persons that do not communicate frequently withuser B, have not actually communicated with user B for specified periodof time. For example, the software could look at the sorted directory20, and determine whether the individual whose information is at thebottom of the directory (less frequency) has communicated with user B inthe past two months. If the person at the bottom has not done so, thatperson's information is deleted from the directory 20. The period of twomonths is only an example of a parameter that can be adjusted accordingto the directory's owner preferences.

FIG. 2 shows communication means 10 for enabling communication betweenuser A and other users (e.g., users B-F) of the system 100, and thatcorresponds to user A in this particular example. The communicationmeans 10 includes a computer system 202 with a keyboard 206 and a screen208; and a speaker 204, camera 212, and microphone 210 connected to thecomputer 202. The computer 202 runs software that displays on screen 208a representation of other users 220-222 present (on-line) in a virtualspace room. The ability of communicating with these other parties inreal-time via the computer system 202 is what makes the system acollaborative conferencing system.

The computer 202 only displays an image of those users that have beendetermined to be of interest to user A 10. As seen on FIG. 2, user A hasdetermined that he or she is likely to be interested in communicatingwith users C, E and F. The representation of users C, E and F in thecomputer screen is denominated by numerals 220-222, and it includesimage information as well as other personal information about the users.User A uses different means to communicate with any of the users in thevirtual space room. These means include, but are not limited to, voice,interactive text (chat), e-mail, and video.

The speaker 204 is used for listening to voice messages sent by theusers in the virtual space room. On the other hand, the microphone 210is used to send voice messages to users in the virtual space room. Thesevoice messages are either voice mail messages, stored either locally inthe computer 202 or in some other recording means, or real-time voicemessages (i.e., real-time telephony).

The camera 212 is used to capture an image of user A, which ispresumably displayed in the computer screen associated with other usersparticipating in the virtual space room. The camera 212 is turned offwhen user A does not desire to transmit an 1 image of herself/himself.It is possible to have a participant in the virtual space room that doesnot want his or her image displayed. For example, a chat window 224displays interactive text communications between user B and user A. Asseen from the display, an image of user B is not shown in the screen208. The chat window 224 is used by any of the users in the virtualspace room, and its use is limited to displaying text messages from allof the parties, as it would for a conventional chat room.

When user A decides to communicate via interactive text, he or she needsto type the message on the keyboard 206. The user can edit the enteredtext which is displayed on the window 228. After the changes have beenentered, the text is displayed on the chat window 224 when user A hitsthe button 226 displayed on the screen 208.

By comparing FIG. 2 and FIG. 3, one notices that the imagerepresentations 220-222 displayed on screen 208 of user A's computersystem 202 match the permissions associated to users C, E and F (300,302 and 303 in FIG. 3). As discussed above, user A has determined thatuser B is likely to be an interesting person. This is evidenced by theinteractive text exchange between user A and user B, shown in windows224 and 228 of FIG. 2. It is also evident from FIG. 2, that user A couldhave accessed the directory 20 in order to access information aboutusers C, E and F. Thus, user A determined that users C, E and F are alsolikely to be interesting. User A could have also determined that user Dis likely to be an interesting person, even though user D is notdisplayed on screen 208. Only users that are on-line are displayed onthe screen 208.

FIG. 4 shows a method for performing collaborative conferencing inaccordance with the present invention. In step 401 a first userdetermines which persons are likely to be interesting. As discussedpreviously, this determination can be done for a single person, and thenthe determination of additional persons likely to be interesting can beexpanded by looking at the directory of the first persons determined tobe likely interesting. In step 402, the first user accesses the personaldirectory of one of the likely interesting persons. This step is notlimited to the first person that was determined to be likelyinteresting. Once a list of likely interesting persons have been puttogether by the first user, he or she can go into the directory of anyof the individuals in that list.

After the first user has determined likely interesting persons and hasaccessed the directory of a first likely interesting person, the firstuser establishes communication with the persons who are determined to belikely interesting. This communication takes place in a virtual spaceroom context.

FIG. 5 shows is alternative embodiment of the present invention. Thesoftware running on the computer 202 allows persons in a virtual spaceroom to be separated in subgroups. These subgroups are displayed 501-503on the computer screen 208. Persons in Group I 501, cannot communicatewith persons outside Group I 501 (Group II 502, Group III 503). Assumingthat user A belongs to Group I 501, user A can still see in the computerscreen 208 who is in the other groups. If user A wants to communicatewith individuals from the other groups, user A must change groups inorder to accomplish the desired communication. For example, if user A isin Group I 501, and notices that user B (a person that is likely to beinteresting) is in Group II 502, user A would have to enter Group II 502in order to communicate with user B. Once user A transfers to Group II502, an image representation of user A would appear in the area of thecomputer screen that corresponds to Group II 502.

The foregoing description of preferred embodiments of the presentinvention provides illustration and description, but is not intended tobe exhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise form disclosed.Modifications and variations are possible in light of the aboveteachings or may be acquired from practice of the invention. The scopeof the invention is defined by the claims and their equivalents.

1. A method for real-time communication among two or more individuals separated in space, comprising: determining that a first individual is likely to be interested in communicating with a second individual via a first communications link; retrieving information via the first communications link about one or more additional individuals from electronic memory means associated with the second individual; and establishing communication with at least one of the additional individuals based on the retrieved information.
 2. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of determining that a first individual is likely to be interested in communicating with a second individual via a first communications link comprises the step of: establishing communication between the first individual and the second individual.
 3. The method of claim 2 wherein the communication established between the first and second individuals is carried out by telephony.
 4. The method of claim 3 wherein the communication established between the first and second individuals is by real-time telephony.
 5. The method of claim 2 wherein the communication established between the first and second individuals comprises exchanges of voice mail messages.
 6. The method of claim 2 wherein the communication established between the first and second individuals comprises exchanges of text messages.
 7. The method of claim 2 wherein the first and second individuals communicate via real-time video.
 8. The method of claim 2 wherein the first and second individuals communicate via interactive real-time text communication.
 9. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of determining that a first individual is likely to be interested in communicating with a second individual comprises the steps of: displaying a representation associated with the second individual to the first individual; and selecting the representation by the first individual.
 10. The method of claim 1 wherein the information in the memory is obtained by observing previous communications between the second individual and one of the individuals in the memory.
 11. The method of claim 10 wherein the communication established between the second individual and one of the individuals in the memory is carried out by telephony.
 12. The method of claim 10 wherein the communication established between the second individual and one of the individuals in the memory is by real-time telephony.
 13. The method of claim 10 wherein the communication established between the second individual and one of the individuals in the memory comprises exchanges of voice messages.
 14. The method of claim 10 wherein the communication established between the second individual and one of the individuals in the memory comprises exchanges of text messages.
 15. The method of claim 10 wherein the second individual and one of the individuals in the memory is by real-time video.
 16. The method of claim 10 wherein the communication established between the second individual and one of the individuals in the memory communicate via interactive real-time text.
 17. The method of claim 10 wherein from observing previous communications between the second individual and one of the individuals in the memory, the frequency with which the second individual communicates with the individuals in the memory is determined, and the individuals are sorted in the memory according to the frequency of communication.
 18. The method of claim 17 wherein the individuals in the memory that do not communicate frequently with the second individual are deleted from the memory after a certain amount of time.
 19. A method for communication among two or more individuals separated in space, comprising: identifying at least one person that is likely to be interesting; retrieving information, via a communications link, about one or more additional individuals from an electronic memory means associated with the at least one person; and communicating with the one or more additional individuals based on the retrieved information.
 20. The method of claim 19 wherein the communicating with the one or more additional individuals comprises an email.
 21. The method of claim 19 wherein the information retrieved from the electronic memory means associated with the at least one person is organized in a personal directory in the electronic memory means and entered manually by the at least one person.
 22. A communication system comprising: a server connected to a wide area network (WAN) for receiving from a first user an identification of a second user, and for sending to the first user, via a communications link connected to the server, information about one or more additional individuals from memory associated with the second user, and for assisting in communication between the first user and the one or more additional individuals.
 23. The system of claim 22 wherein the communication between the first user and the one or more additional individuals comprises an email.
 24. The system of claim 22 wherein the information sent from the memory associated with the second user is organized in a personal directory and entered manually by the second user. 